Question about "Help"

Post by **John Adams** » Wed Feb 06, 2008 11:49 pm

Anyone know how the game utilizes the helpfiles_*.txt files found in the clients helpfiles dir? I thought it was as simple as a UI piece reading the plain text, since it appears to be word-for-word what is in these files... but searching through the default UI, I cannot find the link.
The thought is to maybe use this pre-existing functionality to display some emulator-specific help in-game, if possible.
TIA,
-J

emulates · Post by **emulates** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 12:43 am

Haven't played around with the help files but I'll take a peek bro

ZexisStryfe · Post by **ZexisStryfe** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 6:53 am

Hmm... I always kind of assumed the client just pulled the text for the help messages from that text file. Sure would be nice if we could chance the text and what event calls the text. Is that what you are trying to do?

Post by **John Adams** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 8:54 pm

Yup, exactly.

Hoping to avoid having to build 'slash commands' help funcitons into the code. While the WIKI is nice, it would be far more convenient to just see what we can do in-game.
And there's that Admin-Panel (custom UI) idea floating around here as well.

ZexisStryfe · Post by **ZexisStryfe** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 7:45 am

John Adams wrote: And there's that Admin-Panel (custom UI) idea floating around here as well.

Not sure if this is what you are refering to, but try using this:
Milquetowst InfoCenter
http://www.eq2interface.com/downloads/i ... enter.html
This little UI mod runs off of text files, just like the help files you are looking at.It's great because it is easy to edit and can have differing layers of info with buttons for navigation. This little guy is going to be part of the distribution package (with owners permission of course) I will be creating for my server.

emulates · Post by **emulates** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 10:29 am

Nice find and looks like it'd be very useful

Post by **Zcoretri** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 11:08 am

ZexisStryfe wrote:Hmm... I always kind of assumed the client just pulled the text for the help messages from that text file. Sure would be nice if we could chance the text and what event calls the text. Is that what you are trying to do?

The client does get the text from those help text files. The default UI piece that uses it is eq2ui_mainhud_help.xml
And the Milquetowst InfoCenter is a custom UI piece that I have been using for over 2 years

The original author of that custom UI is no longer updating it, he has since put it online when SOE came out with the browser window.
It is still being maintained by the UI developer who does the Profit Reborn custom UI (which I use by the way, one of the best I think) He has incorporated the InfoCenter into his custom UI.

emulates · Post by **emulates** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 1:31 pm

Was playing with UIBuilder but obviously doesnt show the connection to those actual text files

Nice to know now it'd just be a small modification to the mainhud_help UI and change help as we need it.
Nice Nice

ZexisStryfe · Post by **ZexisStryfe** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 1:59 pm

Zcoretri wrote:It is still being maintained by the UI developer who does the Profit Reborn custom UI (which I use by the way, one of the best I think) He has incorporated the InfoCenter into his custom UI.

I use Profit Reborn as well... truly the best of the best.

Post by **John Adams** » Sat Feb 09, 2008 11:27 pm

Zcoretri wrote:The client does get the text from those help text files. The default UI piece that uses it is eq2ui_mainhud_help.xml

I did look over this file, and likely because I do not fully understand XML, I cannot see where it refers to a single one of these text files by name... so I do not know how to add a new text branch for Emulator help.
Ie.,
helpfile_eq2emulator.txt - main help category
helpfile_eq2emulator_admin.txt - help for admin commands
etc...

Question about "Help"

Question about "Help"

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